hi everyone – hope you’re enjoying your summer!! as you may have noticed, i’ve taken the time to disconnect and get offline. if you’ve ever seen portlandia (and if you haven’t…make sure you check out the first episode…HI-larious!!) you may have caught their ‘dream of the 1890′s is alive’. not only is it way too funny but it’s weirdly got a point. there’s something to be said about going back to those old-timey ways. like actually connecting in person, spending time gathering and hanging out, and creating. and i’ve been discovering that my own city has got a ton of cool stuff going on!

i’m excited to be involved with some awesome events this summer. you’re all invited!! come say ‘hi’

#1… is something i’m super pumped for! it’s summer school lite put on by & held at the gorgeous space at chartreuse – four fun, intimate events held throughout the summer to share ideas, learn & even get to make things! we had our first one (wine & dine) last week & it was loads of fun (photos coming soon!)

#2… is the summer market in avon lake held friday, july 26 & saturday, july 27. it’s held right on lake erie & besides having a ton of cool shops to browse, there will be live music and a ton of yummy food (you’ll probably find me in line at the mobile cupcakery!!)

Hello all! Happy spring? It’s supposed to be spring right? It’s hard to tell because all we’ve seen here in Cleveland is snow. And that makes me antsy. Once March hits, I’m ready. Ready for winter to be over, to throw open the windows, get outside & just feel less hibernate-y (that’s a word, right?!)

If you’re anything like me, you’ve got a bit of a ‘winter hangover’. All the excitement for a new year & new goals has somehow faded to the back because of daily life. You might be too busy, stressed, unfocused, or just plain COLD. Who can feel excitement when all you want to do is stay under the blankets! (Ha, as I’m writing this, I realized that I have a blanket over me!!)

That’s why I love spring. All of a sudden the winter hangover clears and I feel ready to tackle things again. It’s like a second ‘new year’! Now’s the time to use that springtime feeling of inspiration to get working on your goals & your business (or the business you dream about!)

So I’m super excited to tell you about my class coming up for ALT channel! It’s called ‘From Blog to Shop: Making Your Site Shine’ and it’s chock full of tips & tricks for standing out in the way over-crowded online market. It’s something I feel is important to talk about. You may feel like you can never compete with the ‘big guys’ or that maybe it is just too crowded out there. Well, it’s time to start tackling this head on!

For those of you wanting a peek at my upcoming course Make Your Shop Shine, then this class at ALT is perfect. It’s only an hour long, only $15 and I promise to give you action steps that you can use on your own site!

Get all the info & sign up here at ALT channel. Class is online on 4.4.12 – hope to see you all in class!

“how was alt?” ”how did your panel go?” ”did you enjoy salt lake city?” these are the questions i keep getting.

so, i should be starting this post with how amazing / overstimulating / inspiring (insert any adjective here) alt was. not to mention, how my panel went. instead, i get to tell you all about my trip to nowhere and the lessons it taught me.

my trip to nowhere started innocently enough. my 2nd flight on wednesday evening (from minneapolis to salt lake) was overbooked. i ended up getting bumped & set up with a voucher for a plane ticket & a hotel room for the evening…minus luggage. my luggage apparently got to go to salt lake with that flight. just not me.

i’ve never had this happen before – getting bumped from a flight – so at first it was a little adventure. (albeit a bit annoying to go to your hotel room, shower, & then change right back in to your travel clothes) oh, and did i mention that i packed my phone charger in my luggage? you know, the luggage heading to SLC. yep, i did.

but no worries, i said to myself. i get to have room service (mmm) and the flight in the morning leaves me plenty of time to get to SLC & to my panel on thursday.

cue thursday morning. my panel day at alt. i get to airport at 7am and the flight leaves on time around 9am. it’s when we have only about an hour left in our flight that the captain announces that SLC airport is closed due to weather – and we’re being sent to rapid city, south dakota. at this point, i think i exhaled a quiet ‘f**k!!’ but he says that hopefully we’ll be back in the air within an hour or so.

phew…i still can make my panel. it’s close – razor thin close. but it’s still a glimmering light. we de-plane & look around for the food court / store (i wanted to get myself a phone charger). i’m following the herd when 50 feet from the gate we’re in what appears to be their ‘food court’ – a small bar attached to a little deli. huh. could this be it? and where are the stores??

turns out rapid city airport is teeny tiny. as in, only 6 gates and one little store…and you guessed it, no phone chargers! at this point, i realize it’s been over an hour & it’s now official. i’m not going to make my panel for alt. (insert various curse words!)

all that planning & preparing & just the excitement that comes from speaking. gone. then i got anxious for a second. thinking, this is a disaster, will i miss out on everything from alt? will i ever speak again?

but guess what? it wasn’t a catastrophe. it also wasn’t in my control. and it was a big FAT learning lesson. i had just enough battery power left in my phone to send my apologies to my fellow panelists & to alt & then a final one to my hubby to say ‘i’m coming home’

so i left wednesday hoping for an exciting, inspiring trip to alt summit. instead i got a round trip to nowhere & back but learned some valuable lessons!

/ shit happens – you gotta learn to roll with the punches especially when it’s out of your control.

/ it’s not a catastrophe. i survived and my world didn’t crash down around me from missing alt & my panel. in fact, i received some very sweet emails to make sure i was okay.

/ take advantage of extra time. i was stuck all day thursday at the rapid city airport. in my grimy day old clothes. but i had all day to read & listen to music. and i even met a new friend (see there’s always a silver lining!!)

phew-ee, i can’t believe it’s only a week until alt summit 2013! and i’m thrilled to say that i’ll be back speaking on the panel ‘from blog to shop’ because you know it’s a topic near & dear to me! this year, we’re doing an intermediate/advanced panel – i was excited to see that the the folks at alt took suggestions to heart & are now offering different levels.

also speaking on this panel are 3 super inspiring women who i’ve had the pleasure of chatting with & planning our panel.

It’s part excitement mixed with a bit of bittersweet that I’m letting you know that I’ll be closing the one sydney road store on 12/3.

You know that old saying ‘When one door closes, another opens’? Well, the time has come for me to close one door because another one is opening wide. After 2 incredible, amazing, terrifying, exhausting, stressful yet still wonderful years, the time has come to say goodbye to this little baby of mine. And trust me, this was not an easy decision. (let’s just say lots of soul-searching and a few tears). The truly amazing thing is that taking this leap and opening the OSR store opened so many doors for me – doors I didn’t even know or think about!

OSR was started out of my love for design & the incredibly talented artists that are creating it. Behind the scenes this past year, I’ve been helping other artists, retailers & aspiring creative business owners to get their own businesses up, running & shining. And it has been absolutely eye opening…I love it! I want to jump with both feet on to this new path! And the truth is that I’ve built up a full workload with clients and an ecourse & eguide launching in 2013 – which leaves me without the time needed to keep the OSR online store running.

I’ve decided to keep the name & the pop up shops going. When I first came up with the name, I loved that it symbolized being on a road or path. So I think it fits in perfectly to this new venture of mine! Getting you on your path, so to speak. Plus, the pop-up shops have been such fun to put together & another way to promote artists who are doing amazing work.

I feel truly grateful for the support & cheers you’ve all given me. Words don’t even begin to explain how much it has meant to me. Whether you’ve blogged about me and the store, been a customer or just sent me a little note, it kept me going everyday, even through the tough times. Without you, the store wouldn’t have blossomed and this new path certainly would not have opened.

As a big THANKS, I would like to give you all a 50% discount on anything left in stock.
Use code ‘OSRTHANKYOU’ at checkout.

There’s only minimal quantities left, so grab it while you can – hopefully this will be a great start (and budget friendly!) on your holiday shopping!! I’m giving this offer to you all first before opening it up to everyone. You’ll have until 11/15 to use the code & snap up what you can before it’s open to everyone.

Love & Cheers!
Piper(& for all of you artists, designers & shop owners, even aspiring ones, I hope to see you on the new ‘road’!)

happy friday! i am ready with a capital R for the weekend – hoping to go see the movie argo. anyone else wanting to see this movie??

this post series has been a LONG time coming. it’s something i’ve been wanting to do for awhile (i think i had the idea waayyy back in february after going to a ladies who launch meeting) – to celebrate the women out in this world doing ah-maz-ing things. and quite frankly, to just give some shout outs to celebrate their victories (whether small or BIG) and the inspiration that these gals throw our way! i’m finding out that we just don’t take the time to celebrate our own wins…so i’ll do it for you

without further adieu, some shout outs & congrats to…

mariah, my awesomesauce intern, is having a banner week. she was announced as one of the speakers for alt summit AND she found out she was accepted to indie wed!! this comes after she recently left her day job to pursue her dream. so CONGRATS mariah!!!!

hi all! phew-ee, can you believe it’s almost october? and so cold already??! (this may not be true for those of you lucky enough to be in warmer climates – and btw, yes, to me, 60 degrees is cold!

so much to fill you in on! new items are in the shop – i had the small gunns candles for the summer shows and it was so fun to watch people read the candles! the top fave?? frolics naked! hmmm…what does that say?!

i’ve been somewhat quiet over here – at least, in the online realm. i’ve been furiously working behind the scenes to create guides & helpful tips & tools for all you product artists, Etsy shop owners & aspiring shopkeeps. i really have discovered that my passion lies in helping others and i’ve been having an amazing time the past few months working with people on their shops. this all came about after working with braid creative earlier this year. they helped take all the thoughts & ideas jumbling around in my head, and make sense of them! i’m glad to say that they’re just as cool & down to earth as they seem & quickly they became friends!

psst…i only have a couple slots left this quarter if you’re looking for help with your own shop. before i relaunch, etc, i want to offer them up to you guys first at a discount because you all keep me going!! and i want to help make your products SHINE!!! email me: [email protected]

i’m back!! ha, you may not have even noticed i was gone. i had a bunch of things to wrap up & start up so my updates have been few & far between. and i don’t know about you, but i have to soak up every bit of the last days of summer! although we ended up hanging out with friends around the fire pit this weekend and i have to admit that that makes the colder weather more fun! s’mores anyone?

so for all of you who have sent emails asking about the photography for the boardwalk shop…well, today you get to meet maddy from mad hearts photography! i ‘met’ maddy a few years back from surprise, surprise, blogging!! at the time she was just thinking about opening her photography studio so it’s such a kick to see how far she’s come. not only is her photography studio open now but she’s done shoots for pip & estella, shows and portraits that are drop dead gorgeous. so i was thrilled that maddy was open for spending an afternoon at coney island to get the fantastic & cool photos that i used for the boardwalk shop.

make sure you check out her work & her blog…she talks openly about going pro and it’s a rare, honest look at what it’s like. go maddy!!

happy monday! did you have a good weekend? we worked on our backyard patio and got to enjoy some time outside with friends (and our fire pit! seriously, why is staring in to a fire so enjoyable?! must be the zen of it.)

up today in the boardwalk shop is alyssa from brooklyn rehab – i know that i’ve blogged about her stuff a few times – i’ve been coveting her work for awhile (and her nautical necklace is a FAVE of mine!!) so i was excited to have her on board for this shop especially since she’s from brooklyn, home to the inspiration of this shop, coney island!